Chain of Candles
by Goblin Cat KC
Summary: There are nights when Leonardo can't find his way out of the shadows. Pairing: Mike:Leo


**Chain of Candles**  
by KC

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the Ninja Turtles.  
**Pairing**: OT4 implied, Mike/Leo  
**Warnings**: Meditative, mild flow of consciousness, barely edited (even less than usual)  
**Summary**: There are nights when Leonardo can't find his way out of the shadows.

*

There are nights when Raphael disappears for hours to come home covered in someone else's blood. There are nights when Michelangelo falls into black moods and won't speak. There are nights when Donatello grows hollow and feeds at his computer screen. There are nights when Leonardo can't find his way out of the shadows.

Assassins camouflage themselves with their surroundings. Mutant freaks must live behind walls and under ground. The "serious one" lives on the periphery of his family. The shadows that cover him are thick and grow darker as they fight.

In darkness, he knows his place. Strike the match. It scratches and hisses and comes to life in pain, growling with hell in its voice. The flame burns gold white as the wood smolders, then dies down to red and orange blurring into each other.

In darkness, the light draws attention to itself. In darkness, the light defines the rest of the room with silhouettes. In darkness, the light defines Leonardo with shadows.

Like a petal that he's afraid he might crush, he lowers the flame to the candle, the fresh white candle that stands out in a holder of tarnished brass. The flame creeps onto the black wick and leaves a wisp of smoke on the match. It smells of dead wood and cold ashes.

On the candle, the flame does not dance or flicker. It stands, turning around slowly and coming still again. The white wax turns clear and a drop slides down the side like a tear, curls around the candle like a winding sheet around a pale body.

Deep breath. Begin.

Stillness. The moment before the fight, the second as he tenses, focuses on the throat or back or side where he will strike, the instant before he leaps.

The moment when the alley is nothing but whispers from his enemies. Before the fight, only the sounds of distant cars and neon flickering signs and children playing in an apartment nearby. Just before he moves, he relishes the quiet.

Outside his room, a door opens. Wind moves through the lair, too soft to be felt but enough to touch the flame. The fire twists and bows, rears back like a serpent. Michelangelo dancing through the fight, delicately balancing on one foot as he kicks, leans back with a wild swing that arcs through the darkness.

Muted laughter through his door. He tunes it out and listens to the flame snap along the wick. Snapped arms, snapped legs, snapped necks--"dammit," "fuck," "hell," "God damned freaks,"--the fight roars between silent seconds. Sai twisting a gun's barrel, sword stealing a whirling chain, wood smashing hands into bricks.

The flame splits into two for a moment. Raphael and Donatello, back to back. The staff and the sai are awkward together but they make it look fluid. Donatello bends at the waist, extending himself in a straight thrust, and Raphael rolls back over his shell and lands in front of him, smashing the pommel of his sai into the Purple Dragon already reeling from the staff thrust into his stomach. Donatello turns and brings his staff with him, clearing the alley as far as he can reach.

So many close calls. Michelangelo twists and a bullet passes an inch from his shoulder. Raphael pins a hand to the wall before it can throw a knife. Donatello brings his staff down near Raphael on a ninja creeping up from behind.

Leaping, turning, each of them flickers through the fight like firelight.

And beyond the firelight, the shadow. Reacting in time with his brothers, advancing as they fall back, falling back as they advance, he moves through the fight as silent as the flame.

So much easier to stay inside the darkness, to let the light define him in outlines and silhouettes. More serious than Michelangelo, more patient than Raphael, more instinctive than Donatello. So easy to let the darkness swallow him, silent and cold as black smoke curling around the flame.

Blood flows like hot melted wax. Clanging metal, hissing sparks. The candle softens and bows and grows deformed, twisted by fighting.

Standing among scattered bodies, Michelangelo high-fives Raphael while Donatello grins and rests on his staff. For Leonardo, the fight doesn't feel over. He holds himself together, refusing to meet their looks, until he can lock himself in his room.

Like a ritual, drawing out the candle, lighting the match, staring at the flame. His breath comes faster in desperation. There are nights when he can't find his way out of the shadows. The candle grows dimmer. The light becomes a tiny bud on the wick, about to vanish.

A hand touches his.

The flame dwindles into the wax and drowns, extinguished. Leonardo draws a quick breath as his eyes open. The soft remains of the candle lie warped down the side of the brass holder.

"You've been here an hour," Michelangelo says.

Leonardo looks at him. His brother mirrors his cross-legged seat, smiling even though they both know this is one of the bad nights. How did he sneak in here without making a sound? But the lock is picked and the door is a hair open.

"How deep were you planning on going?"

No answer. Michelangelo leans over and nuzzles his cheek. Leonardo turns his head slightly toward him. His room is cold, but Michelangelo is warm. He accepts the kiss and embrace like an amnesiac trying to remember.

"Come on," Michelangelo says, tugging on his hand gently. "Tonight's movie night. You don't have to talk, but we all gotta be there."

Routines. Normalcy. Patterns they follow to keep them sane when their world could end at any moment. Movie night. Daily practice. Times that they're allowed to disappear on their own--beating up punks, long experimentation, devouring the television, endless chains of candles--and times that they come together no matter what.

And yet...sometimes even that isn't enough.

"Mikey," Leonardo whispers. "Afterward, could you--?"

He can't finish. Their coupling usually happens on the spur of the moment, rushing to fit together and clumsy as they fumble for words. It isn't in their nature to cling and murmur and hold each other, so he can't make himself ask. He has to speak in fragments.

"Tonight, just for tonight--"

"Sure," Michelangelo says, as if it's the easiest thing in the world.

Leonardo lets him pull him to his feet. As they step out of his room and into the lair, the light hurts his eyes.

end


End file.
